No Contractor Left Behind
How Randy Best's for-profit education company jumped to the head of the class.
Oct 2001: Best hosts a fundraiser in his high-rise Dallas condo for Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.). After receiving $26,000 in donations, Landrieu earmarks $2 million to use Voyager in Washington, DC, schools.
Oct 2001: Georgia schools superintendent Linda Schrenko sets aside $1.1 million to use Voyager in one district. Afterward, company execs, staff, and investors give more than $68,000 to Schrenko's failed gubernatorial bid. (She will go to prison in 2006 for embezzling federal education money.)
Fall 2001: Chicago public schools reading adviser Timothy Shanahan says Voyager invited him, his staff, and their spouses on a golf junket. Voyager denies placing the call.
Dec 2001: Best donates $10,000 to Chicago schools superintendent Paul Vallas' unsuccessful bid to become governor of Illinois. He later lands a job as school superintendent in Philadelphia, where he adopts Voyager. Vallas now heads New Orleans Recovery School District, where he's using Best's Epic Learning program in a contract worth $2 million.
June 2002: Best hires David DiStefano, former chief of staff for Rep. Bob Ney (R-Ohio), to help Voyager land federal earmarks. By 2004, Voyager rakes in $7.8 million in earmarks, including $100,000 for a program in Ney's district.
Early 2003: Texas budgets $12 million for intensive reading courses; seven programs apply for contracts. A state Education Commission department previously headed by a Voyager VP selects just one applicant: Voyager.
Early 2004: A Texas school district hires Dallas schools chief Mike Moses, a former Voyager consultant, to help find a new superintendent. Among his recommendations: Voyager VP Jim Nelson. As the new super, Nelson drops $400,000 on Voyager programs. Moses later goes on to work for Randy Best.
June 2004: Voyager inks the first of $2 million in contracts with the Pentagon office that oversees military schools and where Voyager consultant Denise Glyn Borders used to work.
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